The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu has emphasised the relevance of research to national development, saying that through research, his ministry has been able to come up with a Solar-powered Voting Solution that would bring about seamless elections in Nigeria.
Presenting his scorecard on Wednesday March 4, 2020 at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Onu stated that the emphasis of his scorecard was on research.
“At the performance assessment for the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, research is something that is on-going. By nature of research and innovation, it is very difficult to bring a research to an end completely because even when you develop out of research effort, you will continue to do research so as to improve and remain competitive otherwise competitors from other places will overtake you. There are just three areas that I will like to mention to you. The first is the voting solution that we had brought to your attention before; that is Solar-Powered Voting Solution that will help us to have clean elections in Nigeria. It will make it possible for us as a nation, if we want to conduct all of our elections in one day at the same time to do so”, he said.
Another achievement of the ministry, according to him is the Third Eye Navigator for physically challenged persons. “Third Eye Navigator is a tool that will be very helpful to our brothers and sisters, who are physically challenged; so that it can help them to live their lives without relying on anybody for their movement. There are certain features in that navigator that will help them to move quickly and freely from one place to another”, he explained.
Revealing that the ministry was also working on tackling cancer, epilepsy and sickle cell anaemia through local herbs, he said, “We are doing research to find cure for breast cancer and prostate cancer”.
